


Sunflower pawprints

by Yuliares



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, M/M, Meet-Cute, meddling cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28446936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuliares/pseuds/Yuliares
Summary: Two different college students, in two separate apartments... and one presumptuous cat.Nico’s new apartment has a cat door, which he ignores, since he doesn’t have a cat.He’s also wrong, apparently, because a cat saunters in, casual as anything, as he’s cooking dinner. The fluffy creature goes straight for his shins, meowing and rubbing against him, and leaving light-orange hairs on his pants legs.“I’m not sharing my dinner with you,” he tells it, amused.(He does.)
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 11
Kudos: 60
Collections: All and More (18+) Kaysanova Gift Bag 2020





	Sunflower pawprints

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starsalign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsalign/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [starsalign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsalign/pseuds/starsalign) in the [All_and_More_Gift_Bag_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/All_and_More_Gift_Bag_2020) collection. 



> For starsalign (taylor) on discord, who asked for a "modern AU meet cute"
> 
> This piece was strongly influenced by the softest, sweetest vibes from [kayivy's gorgeous artwork](https://kayivy.tumblr.com/post/638571030301032448/d-i-s-t-r-a-c-t-i-o-n-s-set-in-one-long-winter)

The building used to be a house, now haphazardly divided up into smaller student units, the front porch bursting with doors. Nico’s has a cat door, which he ignores, since he doesn’t have a cat.

He’s also wrong, apparently, because a cat saunters in, casual as anything, as he’s cooking dinner. The fluffy creature goes straight for his shins, meowing and rubbing against him, and leaving light-orange hairs on his pants legs.

“Well, hello,” Nico says, amused, and carefully sets aside his spatula to scratch it under the chin. It begins purring immediately and loudly. It must have visited the prior tenants - or it wanted some of the fish he was frying up.

“I’m not sharing my dinner with you,” he tells it, amused.

(He does.)

It spends the entire evening with him, curled up warm in his lap while he reads his textbook, using his yet-unpacked boxes as a makeshift desk to carefully write out notes into his notebook, the other hand absently stroking the cat’s soft fur.

It disappears when he goes to brush his teeth.

As far as new neighbor introductions go, it’s pretty high up there.

~

Yusuf likes to sleep with his windows open - part of the reason he never takes apartments on the ground floor. Especially in a college town, where drunk students are liable to get lost or locked out, and hammer on your windows. He grins at his new place - third floor! Corner apartment! No more roommates!

“Yusuf al-Kaysani,” he tells himself. “You’ve hit the jackpot.”

Of course, what he really needs to hit are the books - he spent all day cleaning up his last place. It would have gone a lot quicker if any of his old roommates had cared to help, but… well. That was the past. Still, it’s Saturday, and he’s got all day tomorrow.

He microwaves a frozen burrito and goes to bed early, reveling in the night air from his two new windows - two windows! A cross breeze!

Yusuf falls asleep with a smile on his face.

Yusuf wakes to a soft pat on the nose, and an unfamiliar weight on his chest.

“Bwuh,” he says, pulling back as the haze of sleep falls away from him. There is… a cat, bright and fluffy, sitting right on top of him. One paw is raised, and as he watches, it tentatively reaches out to bap him once more on the nose. 

He blinks.

“Okay,” he says, voice a bit raspy from sleep. “Uh, good morning.”

It leaps off the bed when he begins to shift, and disappears through the doorway. Yusuf stares after it, and then shrugs, reaching out to turn off his alarm. Outside, the sun is just beginning to rise - his favorite time of day. He follows the cat to where it’s sitting on his kitchen counter.

“That’s not sanitary,” he tells it, as if he were ever actually going to use that counter to prepare food. He lets it watch as he rummages through his moving boxes, trying to find the one labelled “kitchen.” He pops it open with a box cutter to pull out his coffee maker, a mug, and the toaster. 

“Fanciest meal of the day,” he tells the mystery cat, as he starts the coffee and loads the toaster with two slices of bread. It ignores him to sniff at his boxes, rearing up on two legs to examine the inside of the opened box.

“You are a weird cat,” he tells it. But when it joins him at the breakfast table, he lets it sit in his lap, gently scratching it under its chin. It purrs very loudly, and sheds all over his lap.

He holds the door open for it when he heads out for class, but it ignores him, apparently comfortable in the seat he warmed while eating breakfast.

It’s gone when he gets home.

~

Nico names the cat Mimosa, after the bright yellow flowers of _Acacia dealbata_ . She visits him nearly every day, and even though he’s _pretty_ sure she’s not a stray, he starts buying cat food for her. He tells himself it’s just so she doesn’t beg for scraps of his own dinner.

She even stays while he brushes his teeth directly after dinner, where he discovers she loves to drink from the faucet… and then track wet footprints all over the house.

 _Per favore, Mimosa,_ he begs her, as she leaps away from the towel in his hands, unmoved. He often stays up late, preferring to do his studying in the quiet stillness of the night, so at least her paws are dry by the time he goes to bed. When he curls on his side, one hand under the pillow and back pressed against the wall, she jumps up to nestle in the crook of his arm.

And in the morning, she’s always gone.

~

Yusuf names the cat _Shamsa_ , because of her color and because she always shows up with the rising of the sun. She wakes him gently but promptly, and he tells her very sincerely that she is the best alarm clock he’s ever had.

She never looks underfed, but he buys some cat food and a litterbox. Just in case. She winds through his legs while the coffee brews, demanding to be fed, and joins him at the small table as he checks his email and cracks open his textbooks, jotting notes and doodles into the margins.

And every day, she leaves back out through the bedroom window to do… whatever it is she does. He likes to imagine she’s having grand adventures of some sort, like some sort of secret agent with multiple identities.

He just hopes she keeps this one.

~

Nico’s walking home from class through the neighborhood, when he’s surprised to see a familiar flash of yellow fur.

“Mimosa!” he calls, and she peers down at him from a roof, meowing once. “What are you doing up there?”

“You know that cat?” asks a voice, and he turns to see - oh, goodness. A _very_ good-looking man, with dark curls and a handsome beard, also looking up.

“Oh yes,” says Nico, turning back to watch her scampers out of sight. “Do you?”

“Sure do. You call her Mimosa?”

Nico blushes. “Mimosa is a yellow flower in the mediterranean.”

The handsome man smiles. “I call her Shamsa, for sunshine. She wakes me up every morning.”

Nico laughs. “She usually hangs out with me in the evenings. I always wondered where she went - she’s always gone when I wake up.”

“Sneaky thing,” the other man says, grinning and offering a hand. “I’m Yusuf - art history student.”

“Nico,” he says, taking it and meeting his bright eyes. The grip of their hands is warm and steady. “Studying history, specializing in religion. It would seem we share a cat.”

~

Yusuf wakes up early to a gentle paw patting his nose, and Nico warm beside him beneath the blankets. Carefully, he slides out to pad into the kitchen with her, starting up the coffee with a yawn and pouring her food into her bowl, and grabbing his textbook from the counter.

With the other hand, he pours himself a giant mug of coffee, which he takes with him back into the bedroom, setting it on the bedside table to sit back under the covers, back up against the headboard.

Nico makes a sleepy noise, and turns to curl around him - the inverse of their evening routine, where Yusuf curls around Nico, and Nico curls around the cat.

Speaking of - Shamimosa trots back into the bedroom as Yusuf opens his book, leaping back onto the bed with a small _thump_ to curl up around Nico’s head like a fuzzy halo.

Carefully, so as not to wake Nico, Yusuf reaches a hand out to scratch under her chin.

“If Nico is my moon in darkness,” he whispers to her, “Does that make you the sun that led me to him?”

She purrs, pleased by the attention, and Nico stirs.

“Are you romancing our cat?” he mumbles sleepily.

“The sun is a gaudy, shameless thing compared to your beauty and kindness,” Yusuf tells him, bending down to kiss the warm curve of Nico’s shoulder.

Nico’s lips curl into a smile. “You incurable romantic,” he teases. “As if the sun could ever shed as much as our sunflower.”


End file.
